


The Moment You Know (You Know, You Know)

by Loz



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Character Study, First Time, Kissing, M/M, Post S2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 06:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loz/pseuds/Loz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Sam wants to think he’s finished with dissatisfaction. It doesn’t seem fair that he chose this life and he still finds it lacking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Moment You Know (You Know, You Know)

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on David Bowie’s "Where Are We Now?", because if there’s one thing I want to be remembered for in this fandom, it’s how predictable I always was and always shall be.

Sometimes Sam wants to think he’s finished with dissatisfaction. It doesn’t seem fair that he chose this life and he still finds it lacking. But it’s not like he can flip a switch and change overnight. While he’s more thankful now for what he’s got and where he could be there are still aspects of his everyday existence, parts of society, that make his bones itch with barely restrained fury. There are days when nothing goes right and all Sam can do is talk about that in a forceful yet rational manner. Or as Gene would put it, ‘whinge and whine like a pathetic little Jessie’. Sam likes to think that he’s employing angry logic. Everyone else just seems to think he’s a blowhard. 

They might have a point, on occasion. Not always. Just the odd once or twice. Never let it be said that Sam’s not willing to see his own flaws as much as everybody else’s.

Of course, there’s something akin to shameful enjoyment in being a misery-guts. Maya always said he’d grow to be a cantankerous old fart and now he’s more than halfway there, he can’t help but look to the illusion of sky and think, _’true, Maya. You always did tell me the truth.’_ There’s nothing quite as heart-warming as sharing a curmudgeonly thought and having it agreed upon. Sam’s got an inkling it’s how he and Gene finally connected, all those however many months ago. Nothing like an enemy of your enemy becoming your friend. 

But sometimes, yes, sometimes, days like today when the wrongness of life prickles at his skin like a burr he can’t extract, Sam wants to imagine he’ll wake up and only be able to see beauty in the world. It is, after all, uncommonly warm and filled with broad blue skies during Summer, the kind of cold where you need to wrap up and cuddle while plotting how to make your snowman during Winter. The flowers blossom and glow during Spring, the leaves fall like multi-coloured paper planes during Autumn. It’s a world of absolutes and contradictions, and maybe that’s what makes it so stunning. And maybe that’s what makes it so disappointing.

“You look deep in thought,” Gene says, pushing forward a pint. 

The shock of Gene buying him a drink jars him out of contemplation. He glances towards Nelson, who nods and mouths the word ‘tab’ to him. It doesn’t take a genius to work out whose tab is in question.

“No crack about that being hazardous?” Sam queries, before having a sip. It’s good like the beer here is always good now that he’s used to it. 

“Way I reckon, the longer you’ve a thought in your head, the less likely it is I’m gonna have to hear it,” Gene responds with a glint that Sam used to mistake for mockery and now realises is affection. 

Sam gives a wry tip of his head. “I was thinking about the weather.”

“Good thing I came to rescue you, then, Rapunzel.”

Sam snorts into his glass, the smallest huff of amusement. This life can be lacking, and hard, and easy to grouse at, but there will always be Gene; absolute and contradictory. He looks up, narrows his eyes. 

“Would you like to? After this?”

“Like to what?”

“Rescue me from the voices in my head.”

Gene sighs, shrugs his majestic shoulders, still encased in camelhair --- and that’s telling, that, because it isn’t Winter yet. “I suppose, if I must.”

*

They’re still arguing over the City versus United match they went to see over a month ago as they pull up near Sam’s block of flats. It’s a worn argument, one they pull out like a favoured record, no time for dust to collect in the grooves, but there might be a skip in the middle. This is the kind of safe bickering they get into to test their invectives against one another. Better to practise now when they’re alone, just to see where the line is, than in the middle of CID surrounded by people who never know who to side with anymore, not since Gene once chewed them out for always being yes-men and yes-girl. Sam doesn’t know if anyone’s told Gene that, about the insult-test part of their arguments, but he’s noticed that Gene usually does dial it down in the presence of company these days. Sam’s pretty positive that’s simply because he thinks it makes him look more superior, if he successfully cuts him down to size. 

“I’m telling you, that should’ve been branded a tap penalty.”

“And I’m telling you that it’s a perfectly legitimate play.”

Sam throws his hands up in the air after he pushes open the door to his flat. “Bull. Shit.”

“You think if you enunciate more clearly you’ll be more correct? It doesn’t work like that.”

Gene pushes past him and sits down on the cot. Sam watches as it dips in the middle. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you?”

“Thanks so very kindly, dearest Samuel, don’t mind if I do.”

Sam rolls his eyes and closes the door behind him, sauntering over to the kitchenette to get two glasses and a bottle of red he sequestered from Nelson a week ago. 

“Why do you do that?” Sam asks, after their glasses are full and he’s sitting on one of his rickety dining chairs, boots up on the frame of his bed. 

“Do what?”

“Call me dearest as abuse.”

Gene takes a gulp of wine; far more than would be advised. “What makes you think it’s intended as abuse?”

“And you know my name’s not Samuel, right? You must’ve seen my records.”

“Ah, but your records say that your last name’s Williams, so how can I trust those?” Gene teases, studying his wine like he thinks it’ll refill itself, a veritable horn of cornucopia. “I’ve a name for everyone, you know that.”

“Yeah, but,” Sam begins, chugging the last of his own wine, enjoying the sting in his nose, “you’ve hundreds of names for me.”

“Just means I like you the most,” Gene says, easily --- not guarded, or sarcastic or deflecting. Honest. Like it’s simple. Like it doesn’t mean everything. 

“I’m still never gonna call you Gene Genie in any context except scorn,” Sam says with a lazy blink. 

Gene pushes his lips forward, scowls a bit. His expression clears after a second. “I think I can make do.”

Sam doesn’t have time to think about that, think about Gene, when he’s there in the flat, but when Gene finally leaves, way past Sam’s normal bedtime and well into the morning, he does. Sam thinks about the way fighting with Gene always makes him feel like a hero, and how fighting against Gene always makes him feel alive. Thinks about the fact he can always depend on Gene to blindside and surprise him, spark his wonder at everything and anything. They don’t always agree on disagreeing about the same things, but despite pointing out that Sam is a snivelly little scrote, Gene never actually counts it against him. 

*

Several days or weeks later, they’re alone together again. Gene’s house, this time, as his wife’s away in Blackpool with her partner Geraldine and has been for five months. 

“Women, eh,” Gene mutters, settling next to him, their elbows knocking. “Can’t live with ‘em, ‘cause they leave you for a bit of tits and arse.”

Sam unashamedly chuckles at that, sprawled out as he is on the sofa. He’s not as drunk as he can get --- and thank Heaven for small mercies --- but he’s pleasantly buzzed. 

“Would you want to, though?” he asks after too much time has passed for his comment to make much sense. “Live a lie?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” Gene says, loosening his tie with one hand as he lifts his glass of whiskey with the other. 

Sam stares at him a good long while, trying to decide if Gene’s taunting or genuinely confused. It’s always hard to say with Gene, who is equal parts bold, brash sincerity and cleverly crafted bollocks. 

“I don’t know what I think.”

“That makes a first.”

“Except that I wanna kiss you,” Sam continues, deciding that now’s as good a time as any to push.

Gene sets his glass on the closest nested side table. “For what reason?”

Sam quirks an eyebrow. “Just wanna try it. It’d be a first.”

Gene swallows, a clicking noise sounding from his throat. “Must be easier ways to get your tobacco fix, what about all of your passing, massive, whatchumacallit smoking crap?”

“I’m sorry I asked now,” Sam says with a scoffing head-shake. “Should’ve done it with you unaware.”

“Not sure that’s entirely possible, Sammy-boy.”

Sam leans in, placing a hand carefully on Gene’s knee. If he really is resisting and not simply blustering for show, Sam will have his answer soon enough. “Oh, the pet names come out now, I see. But you don’t want me to kiss you.”

“I never said I didn’t want it,” Gene says, quick as a whip, and that’s Sam’s signal, no doubt about it. 

He rocks forward, presses his fingers gently under Gene’s chin, tilting his head this way and that. He gazes, assessing. He can be equal parts sincerity and bollocks too. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Gene says after a couple of seconds. “Want something done, do it yourself.” He surges forward, mashing his lips against Sam’s.

It isn’t co-ordinated or elegant at first. The enthusiasm’s there, but the instinct’s slightly off centre. They turn their heads the same way when trying to correct the angle and end up smashing their noses together. When Sam goes to lick into Gene’s mouth, Gene takes that moment to try and nip his lower lip. The pain is quick, the humiliation will be less so. 

But they keep at it, as they keep at all things in their lives and it starts to get better. Gene cradles his jaw, Sam pushes a hand into Gene’s hair. They get into a rhythm and divide the tempo, with Sam sucking on Gene’s tongue softly, slowly, and Gene brushing their lips in quick, little pecks. It makes Sam’s heart thump traitorously fast against his ribcage, fingers flexing involuntarily because he wants more than this and he might just get it.

And sometimes Sam thinks he’s finished with dissatisfaction, because things are really good. He has a purpose that gives him strength and determination --- something to do, a goal to strive for. He has the certainty that having a good whinge about whatever ails him will make him feel a measure of happiness in and of itself. And he has someone in his life to understand when he needs to be pushed and when he needs to be coddled, who’ll grumble and moan and complain by his side. 

There’s not much more he can ask for than that.


End file.
